“Apologies are owing for the interruption of your sport. I fear we’ve done that?”
“No, your Highness,” said Sabrina. “We had finished for the day.”
“Egad! A good finish too. I myself witnessed the kill, and never saw handsomer. Your peregrines are noble birds, and well trained to their work. Ah! you have a merlin, too. Pretty creature?”
By chance the merlin was perched upon the neck of Vaga’s palfrey; and, while speaking, the Prince had drawn close up, as if to get a nearer view of it. But his eyes were on the girl’s face instead, and the “pretty creature” seemed an apostrophe to her rather than the bird. For it was spoken with peculiar emphasis, and in a subdued tone, as if he did not desire her sister to hear it. Nor did she, having become engaged in conversation with Captain Trevor, some distance apart.
“She’s very clever,” rejoined Vaga, referring to the merlin, and without appearing to notice the gaze directed upon her,—“can kill everything she’s cast-off at.”
“Ah!” sighed the Prince. “Fatal to all the larks and buntings, just as the eyes of her mistress must be to all men.”
She looked at him with a puzzled expression. What a strange remark to make about her sister, whom he could never have seen, save that once as they passed him going out of Bristol! But she understood it, on his adding,—
“The little beauty is yours, I take it?”
“No, your Highness,” she answered, without making any allusion to the implied compliment, though its braverie jarred upon her ear. “The merlin belongs to my sister. The peregrines are mine.”
“Happy peregrines!” he exclaimed, pretending to apostrophise the two great falcons, that, now hooded, had been returned to their kedge. “How I should like to be one of you! Ay; would consent to be held in leash for life, could I but hope for caresses, such as you receive from the hands of your beautiful mistress. Ah! that must be sweet?”